Background

By mid-December 1950, the United States was discussing terms for an agreement to end the Korean War.[3] The desired agreement would end the fighting, provide assurances against its resumption, and protect the future security of UNC forces.[4] The United States decided there needed to be a military armistice commission of mixed membership that would supervise all agreements.[3] Both sides would need to agree to "cease the introduction into Korea of any reinforcing air, ground or naval units or personnel ... and to refrain from increasing the level of war equipment and material existing in Korea."[3] The U.S. also desired to make a demilitarized zone that would be roughly 20 miles wide.[3] The agreement would address the issue of prisoners of war which the U.S. believed should be exchanged on a one-for-one basis.[3]

While talks of a possible armistice agreement were circulating, in late May and early June 1951, the President of the Republic of Korea (ROK, South Korea) Syngman Rhee opposed peace talks. He believed the ROK should continue to expand its army in order to march all the way to the Yalu River and completely unify the nation.[5] The UNC did not endorse Rhee’s position.[5] Even without UNC support, Rhee and the South Korean government launched a massive effort to mobilize the public to resist any halt in the fighting short of the Yalu River.[6] Other ROK officials supported Rhee’s ambitions and the National Assembly of South Korea unanimously passed a resolution endorsing a continued fight for an “independent and unified country.”[6] At the end of June, however, the Assembly decided to support armistice talks,[6] although President Rhee continued to oppose it.[7]

Like Syngman Rhee, North Korean leader Kim Il-sung also sought complete unification. The North Korean side was slow to support armistice talks and only on June 27, 1951 – seventeen days after armistice talks had begun – did it change its slogan of "drive the enemy into the sea" to "drive the enemy to the 38th parallel."[8] North Korea was pressured to support armistice talks by allies China and the Soviet Union, whose support enabled North Korea to continue fighting.

Armistice discussions

Site of negotiations in 1951

Talks concerning an armistice started July 10, 1951,[9] in Kaesŏng, a city occupied by North Korea in North Hwanghae Province near the South Korean border.[10] The two primary negotiators were Chief of Army Staff General Nam Il, a North Korean Deputy Premier, and United States Vice Admiral Charles Turner Joy.[11] After a period of two weeks, on June 26, 1951, a five-part agenda was agreed upon[12] and this guided talks until signing of the armistice on July 27, 1953. The items to be discussed were:

Adoption of agenda.

Fixing a military demarcation line between both sides so as to establish a demilitarized zone as a basic condition for cessation of hostilities in Korea.

Concrete arrangements for realization of a ceasefire and armistice in Korea, including composition, authority and functions of a supervisory organization for carrying out the terms of a truce and armistice.

Arrangements relating to prisoners of war.

Recommendations to the governments of the countries concerned on both sides.[12]

After the agenda was decided, talks proceeded slowly with off and on again discussions. The longest gap between discussions started on August 23, 1951,[12] during the morning before sunrise, when North Korea and its allies claimed the conference site in Kaesŏng had been bombed. North Korea requested the UNC conduct an immediate investigation, which concluded there was evidence a UNC aircraft had attacked the conference site. The evidence, however, appeared to be manufactured. The Communists subsequently refused to permit an investigation during daylight hours.[13]

Armistice talks did not start again until October 25, 1951.[9] The U.S. would not allow further discussion to take place in Kaesŏng.[14]Panmunjom, a nearby village in Kyŏnggi Province bordering North and South Korea, was chosen as the new location for peace agreement deliberations conditional on sharing responsibility for protection of the village by both powers.[15]

The on-again, off-again armistice negotiations continued for two years,[16] first at Kaesong, on the border between North and South Korea, and then at the neighbouring village of Panmunjom.[17] A major, problematic negotiation point was prisoner of war (POW) repatriation.[18] The PVA, KPA, and UN Command could not agree on a system of repatriation because many PVA and KPA soldiers refused to be repatriated back to the north,[19] which was unacceptable to the Chinese and North Koreans.[20] In the final armistice agreement, signed on 27 July 1953, a Neutral Nations Repatriation Commission, under the Chairman Indian General K. S. Thimayya, was set up to handle the matter.[21]

In 1952, the United States elected a new president, and on 29 November 1952, the president-elect, Dwight D. Eisenhower, went to Korea to learn what might end the Korean War.[22] With the United Nations' acceptance of India's proposed Korean War armistice,[23] the KPA, the PVA, and the UN Command ceased fire with the battle line approximately at the 38th parallel. Upon agreeing to the armistice, the belligerents established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ), which has since been patrolled by the KPA and ROKA, United States, and Joint UN Commands. Discussions continued slowly because of difficulties regarding demarcation of the border between North and South Korea. China and North Korea believed and expected the line to remain at the 38th parallel. Within weeks, however, both nations accepted the Kansas Line, the place where the two sides had confronted each other at the time.[9] In March 1953, the death of Joseph Stalin helped spur negotiations. While Chinese leader Mao Zedong was not willing to compromise then, the new Soviet leadership issued a statement two weeks after Stalin's death, calling for a quick end to hostilities.[24]

On July 19, 1953, delegates reached agreement covering all issues on the agenda regarding an armistice.[27] On July 27, 1953, at 10:00 a.m. the armistice was signed by Nam Il, delegate of the Koreans People's Army and the Chinese People's Volunteers, and William K. Harrison Jr., UNC delegate.[2] Twelve hours after the signing of the document, all regulations approved in the armistice commenced.[28]

Effects

The signed armistice established a “complete cessation of all hostilities in Korea by all armed force”[2] that was to be enforced by the commanders of both sides. Essentially a complete cease-fire was put into force. The armistice is however only a cease-fire between military forces, rather than an agreement between governments.[29] No peace treaty was signed which means that the Korean War has not officially ended.

The armistice also established the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The DMZ was decided to be a 2.5-mile (4.0 km)-wide fortified buffer zone between the two Korean nations.[30] The Demilitarized Zone follows the Kansas Line where the two sides actually confronted each other at the time of the signed armistice. The DMZ is currently the most heavily defended national border in the world.

The Armistice also established regulations regarding prisoners of war. The agreement stated that “Within sixty (60) days after this agreement becomes effective each side shall, without offering any hindrance, directly repatriate and hand over in groups all those prisoners of war in its custody who insist on repatriation to the side to which they belonged at the time of capture.”[2] Ultimately, more than 22,000 North Korean or Chinese soldiers refused repatriation. On the opposite side, 327 South Korean soldiers, 21 American soldiers and 1 British soldier also refused repatriation, and remained in North Korea or in China. (See: List of American and British defectors in the Korean War.)

In addition to the established regulations listed above, the armistice also gave recommendation to the “governments of the countries concerned on both sides that, within three (3) months after the Armistice Agreement is signed and becomes effective, a political conference of a higher level of both sides be held by representatives appointed respectively to settle through negotiation the questions of the withdrawal of all foreign forces from Korea, the peaceful settlement of the Korean question, etc.”[2] Even in 2013, 60 years after the signing of the armistice agreement, these issues have not been settled as a peaceful settlement of the Korean question has not been reached and American troops still reside in South Korea.

After the armistice was signed the war is considered to have ended even though there was no official peace treaty. Despite the three-year war, the Korean peninsula greatly resembled what it did before the war with national borders at similar locations. The U.S. views the war as a tie[citation needed] while North Korea and China both claim that they won the Korean War.[31]

The U.S. believed that North Korea had introduced new weapons contrary to 13(d), but did not make specific allegations.[41] North Korea also believed the U.S. had introduced new weapons earlier, citing Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission inspection team reports for August 1953 to April 1954.[32][42]

North Korea denounced the abrogation of paragraph 13(d).[36] North Korea responded militarily by digging massive underground fortifications resistant to nuclear attack, and forward deployment of its conventional forces so that the use of nuclear weapons against it would endanger South Korean and U.S. forces as well. In 1963 North Korea asked the Soviet Union and China for help in developing nuclear weapons, but was refused.[35]

United Nations statements

In 1975, the U.N. General Assembly adopted resolutions endorsing the desirability of replacing the Armistice Agreement with a peace treaty and dissolving the UNC.[43][44]

In October 1996, the U.N. Security Council, by a statement of the President of the Council, urged that the Armistice Agreement should be fully observed until replaced by a new peace mechanism. Approval including the United States and China, two of the armistice's signatories, effectively refuting any suggestion that the armistice was no longer in force.[43]

North Korean announcements to withdraw from the agreement

North Korea has announced that it will no longer abide by the armistice at least 6 times, in the years 1994, 1996, 2003, 2006, 2009, and 2013.[45][46]

On April 28, 1994, North Korea announced that it would cease participating in the Military Armistice Commission, but would continue contact at Panmunjom through liaison officers and maintain the general conditions of the armistice. North Korea stated that it regarded the U.S. deployment of Patriot missiles in South Korea as terminating the armistice.[47][48]

On May 27, 2009, North Korea announced that it no longer felt bound by the armistice agreement.[49] There were two isolated violent incidents in 2010, the ROKS Cheonan sinking (attributed to North Korea, despite denials) and the North Korean Bombardment of Yeonpyeong.

In 2013 North Korea argued that the armistice was meant to be a transitional measure. North Korea had made a number of proposals for replacing it with a peace treaty, but the U.S. had not responded in a serious way. It further argued that the Military Armistice Commission and Neutral Nations Supervisory Commission had long been effectively dismantled, paralysing the supervisory functions of the armistice. North Korea believes that the annual U.S. and South Korean exercises Key Resolve and Foal Eagle are provocative and threaten North Korea with nuclear weapons.[50]JoongAng Ilbo reported that U.S. vessels equipped with nuclear weapons were participating in the exercise,[51] and The Pentagon publicly announced that B-52 bombers flown over South Korea were reaffirming the U.S. "nuclear umbrella" for South Korea.[52]

In March 2013, North Korea announced that it was scrapping all non-aggression pacts with South Korea, along with other escalations such as closing the border and closing the direct phone line between the two Koreas.[53] North Korea stated that it had the right to make a preemptive nuclear attack.[53] A United Nations spokesman stated that the armistice agreement had been adopted by the U.N. General Assembly, and could not be unilaterally dissolved by either North Korea or South Korea.[54] On March 28, 2013, the U.S. sent two B-2 Spirit stealth bombers to South Korea to participate in ongoing military exercises in the region, including the dropping of inert munitions on a South Korean bomb range. This was the first B-2 nonstop, round-trip mission to Korea from the United States.[55] Following this mission, North Korean state media announced that it was readying rockets to be on standby to attack U.S. targets.[56] In May 2013, North Korea offered South Korea a peace treaty to replace the armistice agreement.[57]

The U.S. position, as expressed in 2010, is that a peace treaty can only be negotiated when North Korea "takes irreversible steps toward denuclearization".[58]

↑Boose, Donald W., Jr. (Spring 2000). "Fighting While Talking: The Korean War Truce Talks". OAH Magazine of History. Organization of American Historians. Archived from the original on 12 July 2007. Retrieved 7 November 2009. ... the UNC advised that only 70,000 out of over 170,000 North Korean and Chinese prisoners desired repatriation.

↑Robert R. Bowie; Mansfield D. Sprague; F.W. Farrell (29 March 1957), "New Equipment for U.S. Forces in Korea", Memorandum to the President’s Special Assistant for National Security Affairs, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian, retrieved 21 March 2013

↑"Defense proposal to authorize the introduction of 'Honest John' and the 280 millimeter gun in Korea", Memorandum of a Conversation, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian, 28 November 1956, retrieved 21 March 2013, Summing up, Mr. Phleger stated our view as lawyers that introduction of the two weapons could not be successfully supported as a matter of liberal interpretation, would upset the balance established under the agreement, and would generally be regarded as a violation of the agreement under existing circumstances. He reaffirmed that the agreement should not, however, stand in the way of any action which it might be considered necessary and wise to take, now or in the future, in view of the military and political situation, and with full awareness of all the consequences.

↑"Modernization of United States Forces in Korea", Record of a Meeting, United States Department of State, Office of the Historian, 17 June 1957, retrieved 21 March 2013, Sir Harold then asked what plans were being made to inform not just the United Nations but the press and the world at large of the Communist violations of the Armistice. Mr. Robertson said the Defense Department and the Secretary of State concurred that at the MAC meeting it would be inadvisable to submit any supplementary data on violations. Furthermore, the Secretary felt very strongly that the release of such information would give the Communists ammunition for their propaganda. We would not, therefore, submit any evidence to accompany the statement.

↑Niksch, Larry A. (5 January 2010). North Korea's Nuclear Weapons Development and Diplomacy(PDF) (Report). Congressional Research Service. p. 2. RL33590. Archived(PDF) from the original on 6 March 2013. Retrieved 12 December 2015. North Korea’s position on a Korean peace treaty (an old North Korean proposal going back to 1974) contrasted sharply in three respects with positions of the Obama Administration, which [Stephen] Bosworth reiterated and reportedly were contained in a letter from President Obama to North Korean leader, Kim Jong‑il, delivered by Bosworth. First, as reportedly stated by Bosworth, the Obama Administration would engage in a negotiation of a peace treaty when North Korea ‘takes irreversible steps toward denuclearization’. North Korea appears to seek the denuclearization issue merged into a U.S.–North Korean peace treaty negotiation. Second, Bosworth repeated the position of the Obama Administration (and the Bush Administration) that U.S. normalization of diplomatic relations with North Korea would be a main element of U.S. reciprocity in return for North Korean denuclearization. North Korea rejects diplomatic relations as a quid pro quo for denuclearization (a position that North Korea set out in January 2009). Third, North Korea’s longstanding agenda for a peace treaty and its repeated definition of ‘denuclearization of the Korean peninsula’ have focused on securing a major diminution of the U.S. military presence in South Korea and around the Korean peninsula (which North Korea defines as elimination of ‘the U.S. nuclear threat’). The Obama Administration, like the Bush Administration, never has expressed a willingness to negotiate on U.S. military forces as part of a denuclearization negotiation.